


Closing Time

by karaokegal



Category: The Piano Has Been Drinking-Tom Waits (song)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, Songfic, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karaokegal/pseuds/karaokegal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What really happened to the waitress?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closing Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekingferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/gifts).



_Where the fuck is the waitress,_ you wonder, staring at a suspiciously empty glass that may once have been full, but if it was, you have no idea how long ago it was or how it got that way. Then you remember that you’re the guy who’s supposed to be finding her, in spite of the fact that lately you’re also the guy who can barely find his own ass with both hands and a telescope.

You met her once, and you could tell she hated your guts. You decided the feeling was mutual, if only in self-defense. But Charlie, your one-time partner, former brother-in-arms, occasional lover, and the guy who still owes you for keeping your mouth shut about that one time in Temeculah, or maybe it was Toluca Lake, he’s got a thing for her. And now she’s gone. “Can’t find her with a Geiger counter,” he told you when he showed up at the “office” begging you to take the case. 

It must have been serious. You and Charlie don’t talk anymore and there’s nothing funny about it. He can’t forgive you for leaving the business, the show, the game. You couldn’t lie to yourself anymore. You weren’t good enough, not even for a shit-stained dump like this, which is saying something. You might have been once, back in the day, before the booze and the cigarettes and every kind of junk you could throw into your body came back to bite you on the butt and leave you with something that might get through one stanza of “Body and Soul” on a good night. The combo went back to New York; last you heard they had a gig on Sunday’s at the old-age home in New Rochelle. Charlie had the magic fingers so he could always work, even if this place is pretty damn close to cleaning up after the proverbial elephant and you…well, you could still make a buck here and there helping out fellow low-lifes who were in a jam.

Charlie had the balls to invade your personal space at Barney’s Beanery, claiming he’d pay you, which was bullshit. You’re here anyway, having talked your way past the bouncer, who had the physique of a Sumo gone to seed. You told him it must be lonely at the top-knot and that perplexed him so much you were able to walk in unscathed. That’s when things got weird and ugly, except you didn’t notice because your whole life is weird and ugly.

The place looks like you feel, right down to the carpet being in need of a trim, and lord knows it’s been a long damn time since you had trim of any kind. These days you’d be lucky to get a hand-job from one of those strippers at the club on the far end of Sunset, the ones you used to be able to say you wouldn’t fuck with your friend’s dick and now, you’d be willing to get down and beg, except your knees are too shot for the kneeling bit. Even those girls won’t work at this place, which is why it’s so important you find Shelly, or Sheila or whatever her name is.

Time to start working, since it’s not like you can get served without her and the more you sober up, the worse things look. Charlie’s playing the piano, and nobody’s listening, so you try not to either. You’re not sure he knows you’re here yet. Makes more sense to start with his competition, so you follow the jukebox into the men’s room and try not to look at the big ten inch record while you do your business and then try to act casual while ostentatiously blocking the door. 

“So what happened to Shelly,” you ask, and if it’s odd that you’re talking to the jukebox, it’s not as strange as the answer, which starts with the hiss of an old 45, and turns out to be “Saturday Night At The Movies,” by the Drifters, and gets considerably louder when the part about “hugging with your baby In last row in the balcony,” which leads you to think, _wait, a minute,_ didn’t the Drifters have another song about the exact same thing? What was up with the Drifters and balconies? By the time you’ve remembered that you were once in an oldies cover band, and you used to know every single song the Drifters ever sang, the jukebox has left the bathroom, and you’ve decided not to worry about it. Where could he go anyway? (Aside from having gotten in and out of a men’s room.) Besides, you’re on to the next suspect. Clearly the balcony has something to hide.

On the way, you pass Charlie, who ignores you in favor of a consultation, which the piano tuner who doesn’t seem to hear very well, or at least the piano tuner’s mother, both of whom have seen better days, much like the piano itself, which looks like your head feels most mornings. There’s still a certain shabby grandness to it, and when Charlie tests a C-sharp major, it rings out, and you feel a vibration, a stirring, deep in the place where your love of music used to come from. Like you could do the opening of “Lush Life” on one breathe. Yeah, breath. You gave that up to the god of nicotine a long time ago, and even if the piano-tuners mother offered you a blow-job for a chorus of “Beer Barrel Polka,” you’d have to turn her (or even the piano tuner) down.

The balcony is so filthy, it tries to tell you dirty jokes, and then comes on to you, which has to mean something, cos’ it’s not like you’re any prize these days. You wonder what’s hidden up there in the darkness, besides the traces of every kind of bodily fluid and excretion imaginable, and maybe a few others. Or a body. Shelly’s body. _I ain’t got nobody…._. Are you humming? Or singing? How inappropriate would that be? You start looking, but all you find is broken glass and cigarette butts, a blonde wig and single spike heeled shoe. _Nobody. Cares for me._ But you already knew that, and when you try to strong-arm the balcony, it blows the one dim light and dummies up, leaving you holding the shoe. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

You’re getting sick up there, feeling short of breath. What you really need is a cigarette. And a drink. But there’s no waitress. You’re going in circles and you have to get out of the fucking balcony. You consider jumping—you might land on the piano—or you might just fall through the floor into a hidden cellar full of bodies. Nah, with your lucky you’ll just break your leg and the nurses won’t give you morphine because your records have been flagged. 

You might as well have broken your legs for all the trouble your knees are giving you on the way down those creaky stairs. The gimlet-eyed owner is waiting for you at the bottom, but it takes less than five minutes of monosyllabic dialogue for you to realize the sharp look is hiding a mind of mush. You’d like to punch him just for wasting your time, but stupidity isn’t a crime. If it were you’d have done even more time in county than you already have. Hopefully, it’s not contagious either, but on the off-chance, you get away as quickly as possible, and someone asks you if you’ve got a light. 

It’s the payphone. And damn it if don’t then ask for a smoke. That can’t be healthy, but at least something is working in this dump. 

You hold a pack of Lucky’s temptingly out of reach. 

“What happened to Sheila?”

“You mean Shelly?”

“So something did happen, right?”

“You’re the guy holding a shoe.”

The phone has a point, so you give up a cigarette and it blows the smoke in your face. Then it rings and when you pick up the phone, all you hear is laughter, a woman’s laughter. Deep and bitter and husky. The way a woman would sound if she stayed here too long. Or got lost trying to get out. 

You need to get out, but you’ve come to find Shelly and there’s nothing outside the door waiting for you anyway. It’s all here…somewhere. The balcony, the frozen menus, the unkempt carpet, and most of all, the piano. 

Something’s burning. At first you think it’s the cigarette-smoking payphone, but then you see the flames out of the corner of your eyes. It’s the barstools. They’re on fire. The whole club is on fire. You walk through the smoke and the heat, but it can’t touch you anymore, even as the ashtrays are insisting this is too much for them and running for their lives. There’s searchlights and sirens and screams, but they’re all going in the opposite direction. You’re moving toward the piano, toward the siren song, toward your fate.

Charlie could have settled for “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire,” but “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” is more appropriate and he’s playing it in your old key. 

You drop the shoe on the piano with a thud and when you look down at the shining black veneer of the baby grand, you see Shelly looking back at you. 

It wasn’t Charlie or the owner or the balcony. It all makes sense now. It was that drunken bastard of a piano. That’s why the club had to burn down and why Charlie wanted you here to see what the two of you could still be. He hits a crescendo on the middle eight and you try a tentative baritone, “So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed, to think they could doubt my love.” 

It’s there. You see it on Charlie’s face. You hear the love in the piano, even if it’s the love of a broken down souse, the only kind you’re still worthy of. Reporters will make up lies about what happened the night Café Armadillo went up in flames, but you’ll be happy it ended here with you and Charlie back together one last time. 

You watch as Shelly crawls out of the piano and puts her shoe back on. She goes to the bar and comes back with your first and last drink of the night. You smile and pour it on the piano. 

You don’t need it anymore.


End file.
